


Ghosts of the past

by captainhook



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24827560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhook/pseuds/captainhook
Summary: Not all books are equally useful.
Kudos: 1





	Ghosts of the past

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Призраки прошлого](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/635644) by Gamaun. 



The book trembled and jumped in her arms like a living thing. Natalya had to hold on to it as hard as she could, and she was screaming strange words out loud – they flew off her lips easily and casually, as if she’d spoken that language all her life. And it’s okay that the meaning of them is incomprehensible, the woman has completely embraced the feeling of omnipotence that was filling her. Great, how great!

“Close the book, you idiot! Close it!” screamed the librarian. She was afraid to take the book out of Natalya’s hands. She leaned against the wall like she wanted to blend in with it, staring with wild eyes. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

Natalya burst into laughter. Who cares? She’s great! Power rushes through her veins, she’s about to fly! She’s gonna blow this rotten, hateful town to hell! Be afraid, bastards!

The wooden floor started cracking, the whole place started buzzing, the books rained down from the shelves. Slivers flew, and through the shattered old parquet reached skeletal hands: a pair, two, three, ten… The librarian screamed, curled up, covered her head with her hands.

The book fell out of Natalya’s hands, and her throat was consumed by fear. But the sensation of boundless power had not yet left her, and she stood by, enchanted by the way the dead crawled out from under the floor. But when they turned their green grey faces towards her, she couldn’t contain the scream of terror.

It was the same person.

Smouldering distorted his features, but she recognised that face, how could she not recognise it?

She killed him herself.

The body closest to her opened its lipless, dried out mouth and hissed. A dozen of his twins, that filled up the space, repeated this horrible sound and extended their rotting hands to Natalya. She unwittingly retreated.

“What… for…” wheezed, gurgled the dead throat. “Youuu…”

“I,” the woman’s tongue was disobeying, and a whisper came out of her mouth, “would have killed again.” 

“Raaauugh!” the dead remonstrated, taking a step towards her. One of them, who was the closest, was right next to her: he wrapped her in the unbearable stench of decay and grabbed the woman by the throat. She grabbed his arm, trying to tear him away from herself, but only tore his slimy, rotten flesh with her nails. He held her throat tight, squeezing harder and harder, her head was in a frenzy, everything was floating, rainbow circles started dancing in front of her eyes… And then they died…

The last thing she saw in front of her was the murky eyes of the resurrected corpse, covered in white scales. They came closer, and closer, pulling her into the foul-smelling waters, devouring her. Darkness. Death… 

“Aaah!” Natalya snapped, curled up, hungrily gasping for air with burning lungs and tossing the blanket to the side. What? She looked back at her room, her bed, her bedside table. She frantically flipped the switch. It was a dream? 

The warm yellowish light flooded her cubicle, colouring the grey world with the usual warm paint, calming, reassuring. It was a dream… But Natalya was still shaking, her shirt soaked in cold sweat. She went to the kitchen to get some water. Too bad that there is nothing stronger – after prison the woman «got sober», she hoped that, this time, it’d last. Fifteen years is too high a price for two drinks.

Maybe it was worth it, though?

As she continued to indulge herself in unhappy thoughts, she filled the faceted glass with water and drank greedily.

What’s that disgusting smell?

She turned her head and smelt the glass. What the…? Maybe a mouse died somewhere? She put the glass down… and went cold again with horror. She checked her theory – and was right.

It was her hands that smelled. Reeked, to be precise, reeked like a dead body. Especially from under the fingernails.

She was shaking. She rushed into the bathroom to wash her hands with soap, shampoo, cleaning product. She struggled to rub her battered skin, her nails, sobbing pitifully. Suddenly through the noise of water a sound broke through. It was either a knock or footsteps or something fell. Natalya abruptly closed the faucet and listened.

Silence.

Her hands, which were irritated with chlorine and hot water, hurt. The woman waited a little longer, but it was quiet. She reached for the towel hanging from the mirror and froze again. The mirror reflected…

The mirror reflected an old, scared to death woman with windswept hair. Deep black shadows lay beneath her eyes, dry lips cracked, and there was a clear bruise on her neck in the form of a long-fingered palm.

Natalya looked at that mark on her neck for a few seconds, then slowly crawled down to the floor and quietly started blubbering, weeping. 

“It was the book… the bloody book…” she was sobbing.

Suddenly, there was another murmur in the room. The woman stopped crying, paused and listened. Unclear… She jumped up, went to the bathroom door and listened. 

Footsteps.

It was definitely footsteps. Slow, terribly slow, dragging down the floor with a nasty squeaky sound. Natalya, with a trembling hand, locked the bathroom door, using the weak latch. She grabbed the door handle with her white hands. No, the door won’t save her, it won’t save her. 

The creaks of the floorboards under heavy slow feet. It’s getting closer and closer. Closer. And the smell. The very smell you can’t confuse with anything.

Knock. Knock. Knock. 

Natalya closed her eyes, hot tears poured from under the closed eyelids. The words came out of nowhere in her head – were those even words? – all of them in the same unknown language. She was fast-pacing that gibberish like she was grasping at straws.

“Aaaaa!” wept something outside the door. “Biiiitch!”

It started banging on the door. The thin barrier started trembling, shaking under the impact, it was clear it wouldn’t hold. Natalya was hanging on the doorknob, saying the same damn thing, getting louder, louder, almost screaming. Outside, there was something, screaming, incoherently wheezing, Natalya, going wild, was screaming back.

And then, everything went still.

The woman wouldn’t let go of the door, but no one was banging on it. Peaceful. Even the smell is gone.

But she didn’t venture out. She sat in the bathroom until morning, sometimes crying and sometimes falling asleep for a while.

Only when the day came to full effect did she venture out. The night guest left, leaving behind a reminder in the form of deep, long scratches on the door jamb. To prove it wasn’t a dream.


End file.
